The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  Soon Lucifer was satisfied that Dracula had taken enough of his blood. It was far more potent than that of any human. He knew this ritual would bind them together for all eternity. That had been his plan for so long. From it, Dracula would have immortality and inherit some of his abilities, though he would still be restricted in the mortal sphere. But it would allow him to live on through the ages and execute Lucifer’s Master Plan.

  At first, Dracula resisted Lucifer’s attempt to pry his wrist away. It forced the Dark Lord to exert greater force. He grabbed his protégé by the throat and threw him down. Dracula landed with a thud on his back, the blow winding him. He gazed up at the ceiling, unable to move.

  “From here on, you are my son,” Lucifer said. “And you shall do my bidding.”

  He glanced at Gabrul from the corner of his eye. Sputum hung in a trail from the boyar’s nose and mouth. He then turned his attention back to Dracula, who remained prostrate on the floor and oblivious to Gabrul’s plight.

  “Your mortal life is coming to an end,” Lucifer told him. He could scarcely contain his excitement as he continued. “It shall give way to a life far beyond even your dreams. For every day of your immortal existence, you shall thirst. It shall be the same as the thirst building inside you in the now.”

  Lucifer rejoiced when Dracula showed signs of life once more, and he watched him writhe about on the floor. The whites of Dracula’s orbs slowly turned blood red. His temperature rose quickly, until it became too much for him to bear. Sweat oozed from his every pore.

  Dracula ripped at his clothes with both hands. He tore them away in shreds until he lay naked against the cold marble.

  Lucifer remained silent the whole time. He waited and watched for the process to begin.

  Gabrul now watched too. He remained on his knees and at a sideways angle to the altar. The sight of his master there mesmerised him. He jumped with fright when the voivode cried out for the third and final time. Dracula’s torso tensed and strained. Every muscle and sinew in his body pushed out against his skin. Gabrul looked on in disbelief as he began to disembowel. Along with his intestines and other organs no longer of use, all of Dracula’s bodily fluids oozed out of every orifice.

  “This, my son, is your mortal death.”

  The process of Dracula passing from a mortal, through death, to immortal lasted a long time. Lucifer paced about the area and, although feeling anxious, he waited patiently for his adopted son to make the transition.

  Gabrul passed out and lay unconscious on the floor. Soon Dracula lay still again, with his eyes closed. Lucifer prodded Gabrul with his foot until he came around. He commanded him to kneel lest he kill him. The boyar obeyed the Dark Lord without question.

  The people continued to pray outside for their voivode. The bitter cold ate into their frozen hands and feet, and the driving rain soaked them through. Their wet clothes felt like ice against their skin, but still they prayed.

  They knew something terrible was happening inside the chapel. All had heard the cries from within. But even with the door open to them, none of them possessed the courage to venture inside. Their instincts told them to stay outside, and that applied to the soldiers as well. Six had already gone in, but none had come out again. The rest chose, for that reason, to wait there and pray for Dracula’s soul.

  Lucifer smiled when Dracula opened his eyes again. “Early in the next century, there shall come a man to strike the first blow against the Catholic Church. You must seek him out and be there when it happens. Look to where unrest among the clergy is at its greatest.”

  Dracula listened to his every word, but did not get up from the floor.

  “His actions shall induce a split in the Church and see Christian killing Christian. Then, for five centuries, you should live and build your strength. In that time, you must do all you can to continue to weaken the power of the Church.”

  Lucifer stopped when Gabrul started to whimper. The boyar looked away, fearful of him. He put his hand over his own mouth in an effort to stay quiet.

  “You shall have your Second Coming, to give you the strength you need to finish your task. Then, this damned institution of Christ can fall to its knees. The same great Church you fought so nobly to preserve, only for it to abandon you in your final hour. As He cast me out so long ago, He has done to you on this day. You shall destroy this last great icon of God. Then, from its ashes I shall rise up and return to my rightful place. I shall rule the heavens and the earth with you at my side, where man should exist no more.”

  Dracula grinned at the prospect. What the Dark Lord said was true. He would never have listened to such talk before, but things had changed now in so short a time. He had fought for the cause of the Church, yet where was God now? Where were His angels? He had been forsaken and denied his rightful place in Heaven. And because of that, he would seek a new path. The path Lucifer had created for him.

  The conversion was almost complete, the wounds on his body gone. Even the arrow that had protruded from his chest dropped to the floor. It was Lucifer’s blood that coursed through his veins now. With it, he assumed the mantle of true evil. The challenge laid down for him was one he wanted to meet.

  He got to his feet, and even then, he felt strength in his limbs he had never before known. A thousand different sounds reached his ears. He heard the sounds of the night for the first time, and they delighted him. His vision improved to the same extent. He knew there and then that night would no longer be night for him. The darkness would never again shield anything from his view.

  His eyes fell on Gabrul. The most loyal of his servants over the years, the boyar sobbed like a child. Dracula felt his terror and could also feel his heartbeat, and read his every thought. Most of all, he could smell Gabrul’s blood; his warm, delicious blood.

  Lucifer was unable to conceal his delight that his experiment had worked. “Tell me how alive you feel.”

  “I feel more alive than ever before,” Dracula replied, his eyes still trained on Gabrul.

  “Feel your power, my son, and nurture it. How men shall fear you. They shall lie awake in their beds at night, unable to sleep, praying for the dawn. For it must only be from the hours of dusk until dawn that you can walk among the living. You are a creature borne of Darkness, and to Darkness you shall belong.”

  Dracula nodded that he understood.

  “In the daylight hours you shall sleep, and feel your thirst grow. Come sunset, you can walk among the living again and drink from them. That is the price you must pay to me for the powers I have bestowed on you. If you do not feed, you shall cease to exist. Then I would have to find another to carry on my work.”

  “I do have a thirst.”

  “I know, my son, I can feel it burning within you.”

  “The smell of his blood is so sweet; so strong.”

  “Then indulge yourself, my son. Accept him as my offering to you. You shall make so many sacrifices in my name.”

  Gabrul could no longer contain his fear. At once, he realised the implications of the conversation. He lost control of his bladder when Dracula approached him, a pool forming on the floor around his knees.

  Dracula was not gentle in taking his old friend. The sensation he felt as he sank his teeth into Gabrul thrilled him beyond imagination. He felt the blood transfuse into his own veins, his own heart pumping it there. It made every sinew in his body tighten, and his penis grow erect, filled with the fresh blood. The experience easily exceeded any sexual encounter from his mortal life. He felt Gabrul’s heart tear in two from the strain as he sucked him dry.

  When he finished with Gabrul, he tossed him aside like a rag doll. He stood over his old friend and urinated all over him and on the mosaic floor, the eight pints of blood containing mostly water. Then he exchanged glances with Lucifer, and smiled. His tongue carefully removed the last traces of blood from his lips. He ran the tip of it over both his fangs, which protruded fully from his mouth.

  The abbot’s voice irritated him no end and rang
like a gong in his ears. He looked to where the door of the chapel swayed gently in the wind.

  Lucifer read his thoughts and encouraged him to venture outside. “Go on, my son. This is where it all begins.”

  Dracula nodded and headed for the door. As he walked, Lucifer spoke after him. “In five centuries, all who live in the civilised world shall know your name. It shall fall on you as to whether or not they believe in you.”

  The monster had been born.

  Chapter 4

  WALLACHIA. THE CHAPEL OF

  THE MONASTERY AT SNAGOV.

  DECEMBER 11, 1476. EARLY NIGHT.

  Dracula pulled open the door of the chapel. Relishing his newfound strength, he ripped it clean off its hinges and strode out into the night, to confront the crowd assembled outside. All eyes fell on him, and he glared back at the meek fools he had once considered his people. They were on their knees in the cold and the rain, praying for the repose of his soul.

  He laughed at the irony. The heady aroma their blood-filled, bloated flesh was an assault upon his nostrils. It was a mouth-watering scent, which almost overwhelmed him. He took a moment to savour it, though he fought off the urge to attack those nearby. As the blood pulsed through their veins, he felt the vibration in the ground beneath his feet. With the taste of it fresh in his mouth from Gabrul, he needed more.

  The smell of the blood of the dead from the battlefield in the distance reached him on the breeze. It was a repugnant scent that proved to him only the blood of the living could satisfy his thirst.

  Dracula pondered the thought. “This is the price of my immortality.”

  Lucifer had warned him that he would die if he did not drink the blood of the living. In taking Gabrul, he knew that to drink from the living meant he would have to kill. The kill had thrilled him to his core, and it had not mattered that Gabrul was his closest and most trusted friend. From that moment, he knew the excitement of the kill would ensure he continued to do so, and often. As he cast his eye over the crowd, he did not care how many would have to die to satisfy his needs.

  The women in the entourage gazed at him in awe.

  “The voivode is alive!” one of them cried.

  Several of them rejoiced. “Praise be to God!”

  “He has shed his clothes,” another observed. “His skin is so pale.”

  “And his meat stands long and hard.”

  Dracula shot a stern glance at the woman who had said that. If she had not looked so frail, he would have taken her there and then. Instead, he scanned the crowd for a more robust target. His thirst was strong and would not be so easily satisfied.

  The soldiers in the crowd heard the talk from the women. They saw all this for themselves, and watched him with more concerned eyes.

  “His wounds are gone,” one of the Maglaks said. “Do you all see it? His wounds have healed.”

  They all nodded, knowing something was amiss. When they had brought Dracula here, he was as close to death as a man could be, and bleeding from several parts of his body.

  Dracula heard the cheers from those in the crowd farthest from him. They saw their voivode lived, and they expressed their joy openly. He paid them little heed, his attention on his loyal Maglak warriors. None of them cheered at the sight of him.

  Their hands touched on the hilts of their swords. Though they did not speak, Dracula read their thoughts as clearly as if they had voiced them.

  “He should be dead.”

  “What manner of demon stands in my master’s stead?”

  These thoughts all transmitted to him, angering him. The green pupils of his eyes glowed fierce in the dark, like those of a big cat stalking its prey. Two grotesque fangs hung down over his lower lip, appearing long and sharp and a touch yellowed. His penis continued to stand erect and long. It twitched against the cold, filled with the blood of his recent kill.

  Dracula forgot them then, the thoughts of everyone in the crowd calling out to him. At first, it was a jumble of sounds; a thousand noises in his head. He put his hands to his ears to try and block them out. The cacophony almost overwhelmed him, as much as the initial scent of blood. He had to fight the urge to run away, but he could not leave. The aroma of the blood around him was far too strong to ignore, and he had to have it.

  When he looked into the eyes of any one person their thoughts became images in his mind. He heard the individual voices behind them. Perhaps it is something I can control. He stepped forward toward the crowd, but then an acute scent wafted on the breeze to his nose; fresh blood. He turned his head in its direction, his sharp eyes focusing on a wounded soldier lying a good distance away close to the edge of the frozen lake.

  Dracula walked slowly through the crowd. The marble floor inside the chapel had scorched his feet, so now he found relief from the cold, wet ground. How did Lucifer walk in there if I could not? Perhaps it was not for him to know. He looked beyond the people to the frozen lake, a walk on the ice having appeal for him.

  He stopped in front of the abbot. It amused him to scan the mind of the holy man and hear his silent words. They looked long into each other’s eyes, Dracula seeing the abbot knew him to be a demon. He grinned with malice at the little man, drawing pleasure from the fear he sensed in him. The urge to kill him there and then tugged at his more primitive instincts, but the scent of the soldier’s blood was too strong for him to ignore. It grew stronger on the wind, and he had to have it.

  The people around him gasped when he vanished into thin air before their very eyes. In one bound, he leapt almost a hundred feet, to the spot where the wounded soldier lay. He moved with speed that the naked eye could not match.

  “Where is the voivode?” more than one person asked.

  They looked about in an attempt to locate their master. No one could see him at the base of the slope behind them, on the boundary where the island met the lake. Then, one of the women screamed. The others followed the line of her arm as she pointed to the night sky.

  As one, the crowd looked up in horror. They saw Dracula hovering some twelve feet in the air above them. He had sunk his teeth deep into the soldier’s thigh near to the gaping flesh wound.

  The soldier dangled upside down in Dracula’s arms. His head felt faint as the vampire sucked the blood from his body, the shock of the bite all that kept him conscious. “Help me!” he screamed at his comrades to save him.

  Soldiers who had once fought to defend Dracula, now drew their swords against him. They moved, together, to the area below him, the bolder ones jumping up and swinging for his feet. When they did, they found him just out of their reach. An archer removed an arrow from his quiver, and nocked it to his bow. He took careful aim at the vampire, and fired.

  His voivode plucked the arrow out of the air with his left hand, without as much as a sideways glance. He held onto it while he continued to drink the soldier dry. The bloodless corpse soon dropped to the ground, landing with a thud near a group of the women. They each screamed at the sight of the dead man’s face, and scrambled away on their hands and knees. He looked up at them with terrified eyes that could no longer see, and a face pale as the snow.

  Dracula then turned to glare at the archer, his anger clear for all to see. Penetrating the man’s mind, he felt the lump build in his throat and the numb paralysis in his limbs. Hypnotised by the gaze from the vampire’s luminous green eyes, the archer did not react when the arrow came back at him. The projectile moved with real venom through the air and hit him in the eye before exiting out through the back of his skull.

  A chorus of screams rang out. Dracula hung in the air above the corpse of the soldier he had fed on, and laughed while his people scrambled to get away from him. The urge to get off the small island overrode any other thought in their minds. They fell over each other in a blind panic, as the mass exodus moved to the frozen lake. Men and women alike slipped and lost their footing on the ice, where the surface was slushy from the heavy rain. With the sudden weight on it, cracks began to appear almost at once.

/>   “Hurry!” someone screamed, as they looked down. “The ice is going to break!”

  “Get off the ice!” another of the men urged.

  With the need to escape the island so strong, few of the people heeded the warning. More and more bodies stepped onto the ice, their fear of Dracula outweighing any other. It was not until they all began to slip and slide on the surface that they began to realise the danger. Many tried to go back, but their efforts were in vain. For them, it was too late. The ice began to splinter and crack all around them. Each new fissure filled the hearts of those on it with terror. Geysers of freezing water shot up into the air. In each spot, the ice depressed and collapsed.

  A thousand screams filled the night. In their dozens, the people fell down into it. Their cries did not last. Each one of them went into shock the moment they took the plunge. Dracula watched as they disappeared from view. The freezing water snuffed out one heartbeat after another, and he felt them succumb to their icy grave.

  The chorus of sounds in his ears faded fast. The loud voices he could hear became whispers. Then, one by one, the icy water silenced them.

  Dracula turned his attention back to the island, where only his loyal Maglak warriors and the monks of the cloth remained. He bared his fangs, knowing of their intent to fight this beast they believed had possessed him. Remaining in the air above them, he circled the large group to erode at their resolve.

  He bellowed at them so loud, each man covered his ears with his hands. “Run my friends! Run while you still can! It is him I want!”

  They turned to see the lone figure of the abbot. The little man shrank further when he heard Dracula speak.

  All alone, on his knees, the abbot looked up at the dark skies. “Lord, have mercy on me, your humble servant. Grant me the strength to face this foul demon. Speak through me and drive this beast away from the eyes of men.”

  Dracula hovered a little closer to him, amused by the prayer the abbot offered to God. “Your God is nowhere to be found here, little man. Darkness has descended on the earth on this day, making your world my domain.”